The Pariah (Covenant of Steel, #1)

by Anthony Ryan

There are things folk will voice to strangers they would never confess to friends or family, for a stranger’s judgement matters little.

The Covenant might love the old Martyrs but you can wager your arse they’d hate any new ones. A new Martyr means change, means fucking up all they’ve built, all they’ve stolen.”

the world does not always conform to our assumptions?

For some rage is a poison, a flame that burns all the hotter for their inability to vent it, eating away at their insides to leave a bitter, hollow shell. For those who couldn’t contain it, like Deckin, it was both ally and traitor. Rage can make us feared and compel the obedience of the weak as a wolf compels its pack, but also it blinds us, as Deckin learned too late.

In my experience, any man who ever called himself humble invariably proved to be the opposite,

“There comes a point in life where childish notions must be abandoned, or one is condemned to a fool’s existence.

you have been failed. You have been betrayed. You have been denied truth and sold lies.

“I come to restore what was broken,” she told her audience which had once again shifted into a congregation rather than a mob. “Not to destroy. There has been war enough in these lands. Judge your neighbour as you judge yourself and know that we are all guilty. This sin is shared among us in equal measure, from the highest lord to the lowest churl.